3M agrees new health information technology alliance

3M has announced a strategic alliance with M*Modal, a leading healthcare technology provider of advanced clinical documentation solutions.

The agreement will enable M*Modal's clinical documentation platform to work in conjunction with 3M's 360 Encompass System, thus delivering new functionality that will create benefits for healthcare professionals that are clients of both companies.

New additions will include cloud-based speech understanding, computer-assisted coding, clinical documentation improvement, quality metrics and analytics, thus helping to reduce interface costs and shorten technology implementation timelines.

The companies will be demonstrating the benefits of their new alliance at the forthcoming Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society conference in New Orleans.

JaeLynn Williams, senior vice-president for 3M Health Information Systems, said: "With this agreement, 3M and M*Modal can simplify and speed the software implementation process so our clients can see the benefits of their technology investment much more quickly."

Last year, the 3M group generated an annual sales total of $29.9 billion (19.88 billion pounds), up one percent on 2011 to set a new yearly record for the company.